Peace and Bliss

In Disney's 1953 Peter Pan movie, one part of the plot is Captain Hook seeking revenge for Peter Pan cutting off his hand. His hand is eaten by a crocodile who evidently has also eaten a clock. The crocodile, having had a taste of Hook, seeks out to devour the rest of the Captain, with the clock still ticking away inside him. Captain Hook is tortured by incessant tick tocking whenever the crocodile is close by and he descends into abject fear at the sight of the beast. This premise is a good analogy of my experience over the last 12 months. The abject fear of myself and my mind. Evaluating reality from unreality, fact from fiction. And when I would feel out of reality, I would panic. The tick tocking descended to get me. The beast about to devour me. "I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us."  Time indeed felt like it was chasing me, like my time was almost up. Now, over 12 months on, it all seems so far away. Years away in fact, it's a strange time warp. But every so often I get a whisper of the abject fear. A disturbance in the force. A quiet ripple of panic that washes over me. When this happens, and it happens rarely, I just acknowledge that its there, find something in my immediate environment that can anchor me and move along with my day. It really is barely a blip on my radar. But what it does, is bring back memories of when I was really unwell. And I am terrified of becoming unwell again, not terrified in that it immobilises me, but it is very jarring to say the least. I do believe in a holistic approach to keeping my wellness from becoming unwellness. It doesn't mean I always follow my own advice though. Medication is a given. I was taking my meds a week or so ago and it dawned on that I will probably be taking medication for the rest of my life. The thought of not taking them and getting sick again, well that's not an option. I also know the value of eating well and being active. Both things I struggle with at the moment. My eating habits WERE really great. In 2017 I started eating a ketogenic diet that evolved into LCHF (low carb high fat or healthy fat). And it worked very well for me. I lost 37kg and felt the best I ever had in my adult life. Unfortunately, I evolved back into my worst eating habits right before my mental breakdown. Was the bad eating the cause? Probably not, but there is a correlation I suspect and it certainly didn't help. Though in saying that from the time I began keto, I started getting the occasional symptoms that were a bit worrying and I never worked out what it was from. Or even if it was the diet changes that caused it. I started having symptoms like an electrical current flowing through my arms and sometimes my legs. It was almost like I had plugged myself into the mains power of my house. It was really unsettling symptom and it would often cause anxiety. I would shake my arms and hands to try and disrupt the unpleasant sensory feedback, and I often told my partner that I felt like I could shoot lightning bolts out of my hands. I also had a few instances where I felt a warm water sensation on my inner thigh, like I had spilled a warm drink on myself. The first time I had the symptom, I thought that in fact I had spilled my coffee on my leg. My doctor sent me for tests, MRI and bloods and I think a CT scan. She was worried about MS. All tests came back clear. So it's still mystery as to what caused the issues. I have wondered if maybe I was too low carb or not having enough salt/electrolytes/magnesium/vitamins or perhaps dehydrated? Maybe all of the above. I felt like my hormones were a bit out of whack too, in spite of my blood tests telling me all was normal. Is it possible that my keto/low carb diet messed up my hormones? I am not sure. I know that there are anecdotes of people with PCOS doing well on a ketogenic diet, but I have never particularly had any issues with my cycles like that. So it is all a puzzle. I haven't had any of those symptoms for a long time, well over 18 months. But they did precede my breakdown. Maybe it was a neurological symptom warning me that all was not well. Either way, life certainly has not been the same since. I felt very in control of my eating, which is good and bad. Right now, I am frustrated with myself for not focusing more on cleaning up my diet and working on the physical activity component of wellness. I feel a bit stuck. But I also don't feel quite ready to tackle it. My diet is not dreadful, but it could do with some tweaking to get my health back to optimal levels. Sadly I have put on about 12kgs over the past year, anti-psychotics contributed to some of that, but mostly my choices haven't helped. But when I was trying to not kill myself, making sure I ate the broccoli and kale was the least of my worries. Anyway. Life is never linear and a great health coach friend once told me when I was trying to kick my bad eating habits, "you're never cured of this."  She's right. It is always a work in progress, a management process everyday. I juggle lots of life balls and this one I can't afford to keep dropping. So keeping my own health and wellness as a top priority is my current focus. I feel like I am forever on a journey to make sense of myself. "Just think happy thoughts and you will fly." I want to fly like Peter Pan and find the magic of Neverland in my life, to be a kid at heart and find the wonder in my world. To well and truly slay the beast and smash the incessant tick tocking. To think of happy memories and to make more joyful ones. To find peace and bliss all in one. To make a life that feels magical.

"All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust."